John Leguizamo: Minorities Need Access To Jobs That Get Their Stories Told
- 6 years ago
In the political climate of Donald Trump and Black Lives Matter, actor and writer John Leguizamo argues that giving minority actors the opportunity to tell minority stories will translate to change for the individual and bridge social divides. Leguizamo's latest film performance is in the movie "The Infiltrator" (http://goo.gl/qAOF6a).
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Transcript - As a Latin person, you know, minorities, black people have to do it as well. We have to immerse ourselves in white culture and learn about white culture. And it’s all we were taught in school and in movies. And so we learn but it’s not reciprocal, you know. It’s not a reciprocal thing that happens that white culture wants to learn about Latin culture or black culture. But there are a few. There are a few. Jane Elliott being one of the great ones. I mean tackling it in my industry it’s like Hollywood is so – Oscar is so white that which was the symptom of a disease which is Hollywood is not making movies or being conscious about including Latin and black people in their movies when we’re almost 50 percent of the population. So it’s a very unbalanced representation of reality and causes great harm, especially for youth who need to see themselves in movies. I think it’s about the work needs to be done is not so much understanding people of different ethnic backgrounds as much as giving them the jobs. That’s really it because we’re all really the same, you know. We’re just slightly different, you know, flavors and slightly different colors. But I think it’s all about giving those jobs and people rise up to the occasion. I mean that’s all you’ve got to do.
And what’s interesting because I just did my show – I’m doing it in Berkley and they brought this group of high school kids and some of them were Latin and they were just flabbergasted the kids seeing a Latin person performing on stage. They’d never been to the theater, never seen a Latin person on stage and it just changed their whole entire perspective. They all of a sudden felt like they could do it, you know. And it was a beautiful thing and despite organizations opening up and giving the opportunities that’s how these things happen. It’s kind of like Viola Davis said the reason she won that Emmy was because somebody finally gave her the role that she needed to win. Because she’s always had the same talent and she’s always been around but finally somebody wrote the right role that was ample enough for a person of color to win an Emmy. Read Full Transcript Here: http://goo.gl/AsqetG.
Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/john-leguizamo-on-minorities-in-america
Follow Big Think here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
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Transcript - As a Latin person, you know, minorities, black people have to do it as well. We have to immerse ourselves in white culture and learn about white culture. And it’s all we were taught in school and in movies. And so we learn but it’s not reciprocal, you know. It’s not a reciprocal thing that happens that white culture wants to learn about Latin culture or black culture. But there are a few. There are a few. Jane Elliott being one of the great ones. I mean tackling it in my industry it’s like Hollywood is so – Oscar is so white that which was the symptom of a disease which is Hollywood is not making movies or being conscious about including Latin and black people in their movies when we’re almost 50 percent of the population. So it’s a very unbalanced representation of reality and causes great harm, especially for youth who need to see themselves in movies. I think it’s about the work needs to be done is not so much understanding people of different ethnic backgrounds as much as giving them the jobs. That’s really it because we’re all really the same, you know. We’re just slightly different, you know, flavors and slightly different colors. But I think it’s all about giving those jobs and people rise up to the occasion. I mean that’s all you’ve got to do.
And what’s interesting because I just did my show – I’m doing it in Berkley and they brought this group of high school kids and some of them were Latin and they were just flabbergasted the kids seeing a Latin person performing on stage. They’d never been to the theater, never seen a Latin person on stage and it just changed their whole entire perspective. They all of a sudden felt like they could do it, you know. And it was a beautiful thing and despite organizations opening up and giving the opportunities that’s how these things happen. It’s kind of like Viola Davis said the reason she won that Emmy was because somebody finally gave her the role that she needed to win. Because she’s always had the same talent and she’s always been around but finally somebody wrote the right role that was ample enough for a person of color to win an Emmy. Read Full Transcript Here: http://goo.gl/AsqetG.